


The Cafeteria

by alloutforthewar



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5939994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alloutforthewar/pseuds/alloutforthewar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revival Mulder and Scully in the Hoover Cafeteria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cafeteria

“Well,” Mulder said leaning back in his chair and worrying a toothpick between his teeth, “it’s good to know some things never change.” 

Scully glanced up from her container of salad, a cherry tomato pierced on her plastic fork. 

“Are you referring to the fact that we’re being simultaneously shunned and ogled by every agent in this room?” she asked. Mulder scowled, surveying the cafeteria before resting his eyes back on her. 

“No, although you do have a point. I just meant that the coffee’s still shit.” Scully almost smiled but instead she lifted the fork to her lips and took the tomato between her teeth. 

“Would it still be the Bureau if they served good coffee?” she eventually replied, causing him to huff out a laugh, filling her with an odd sense of satisfaction, as though the two of them were fighting to make the other react.

_Scully: 1, Mulder: 0._

“You always asked the hard hitting questions, Scully.” 

She raised her right eyebrow and sipped her coffee, its flavour hitting her with a sudden sense memory of the bitterness of his sweat, of his semen as it hit the back of her throat. There had been times, their years on the run in particular, when she had lived for that, for the sense of power it gave her, to hear him moan her name and see his head thrown back in abandon. 

He was paranoid and vigilant, aware of his surroundings and its implied threats at all times, but with the merest touch of her hand or flick of her tongue she could render him defenceless, vulnerable and open to any attack; when she took him in her mouth she took his life in her hands. In the soft warmth of her body he ceded all control to her, and the symbolism of this was not lost on her.  
_Ok_ , he seemed to say. _I trust you._  

Watching him now it seemed unimaginable to her. She tried to reconcile this relaxed, fifty-something government worker with greying temples and an ugly tie to the tense and wired man she had fallen in love with over two decades ago. She couldn’t see him in any of the younger agents seated around them, couldn’t see his drive or his vision, his unapologetic passion in any of them. 

She’d been incredulous when Skinner had first approached her. What could the Bureau possibly need with the two of them, over the hill and overzealous, has-beens that were talked about in the corridors as though they were already ghosts. 

But she understood it now as she took in the agents before her, huddled at formica tables and picking at nicoise salads and mac and cheese. They knew nothing, had seen nothing, would not fight past what was deemed necessary by their pay grade. They would go home at the end of the day to their real lives, their jobs just that; jobs. 

For Mulder and herself, this was a way of life, this was their life, and no amount of time or distance could change that. They would always step up to the plate with everything they had and be prepared to leave with nothing. Always. And being here made her feel close to him in a way she hadn’t felt for months.

Hadn’t felt since months before she left, if she was honest.  

“Sugar, Scully?” Startled, she looked at him, then down to the coffee in her hands. He must have seen her grimace. 

“I’m sweet enough,” she muttered sardonically, shaking her head no. Mulder just smiled. 

“Yeah,” he murmured, and she tried to convince herself she was imagining the husky timbre his voice had suddenly acquired. “You are.”


End file.
